Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Two Etchings, One Bird

Walk: Union Square
Distance: 1 mile and home yoga

Pablo Picasso ‘Dove’, 1949
© Succession Picasso/DACS 2015
      Pablo Picasso, Dove, 1949, lithograph on white Arches wove paper

A coda of sorts to CIWT's yesterday entry about the beloved and beautiful fancy pigeon (also called   dove) Picasso received from Matisse in 1941 after an operation for abdominal surgery from which he did not expect to recover:

The famous Peace Poster is the most well known image.  But arguably the most beautiful portrait Picasso made of the dove was done in a different style several years earlier, in Paris, January 1949.
The printmaker, Fernand Mourlot has called it 'one of the most beautiful lithographies ever achieved; the soft tones attained in the feathers...are absolutely remarkable.  This plate...conveys the maximum that can be obtained with lithographic ink used as wash.' ((Mourlot 1970, p. 123)

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